


clave the wood

by couldaughter



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Alternate Universe - World War I, M/M, Possibly the most self indulgent thing I've ever written, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regeneration AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:05:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1682720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/couldaughter/pseuds/couldaughter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan reached into his front pocket, pulling out a spiral bound notebook and pencil. Flipping to the first empty page, he scribbled a note and shoved it across the table.</p><p><i>Ross</i>, it read. <i>Sergeant</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clave the wood

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alitanyinwhich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitanyinwhich/gifts).



> auxiliary trigger/content warnings: implication of dissociation, mention of vomiting, minor ableist language, discussion of surgery, discussion of religious faith, nightmares (death, injury, body horror)

The grey stone walls of the hospital loomed before Brendon as he walked up the granite steps, suitcase banging painfully against his thigh. He was convinced, in that moment, that the architect had deliberately designed it to infuse the patients with as much misery as possible - counterintuitive, perhaps, but certainly not unreasonable.

Birds were chirping quietly in the background, but otherwise the only sign of life was the twitching of curtains in the tall windows on either side of the front door. The air was still, and the sun was shining. On any other day, Brendon might have stopped to smell the roses, but he’d spent so little time outside in the past few months that it now seemed too big, intimidating in a way he couldn’t have anticipated when he was told he wouldn’t be returning to the front. He’d been angry, at the time. Now he wasn’t sure how to feel.

The doors slammed shut behind him, and he flinched. Loud noises were still a problem, then. He’d hoped leaving that fucking hospital would’ve made that stop, but apparently surviving a shell explosion had used up his luck for life. 

“Sergeant Urie?” Brendon looked up to discover that he’d been stood outside for much longer than he’d thought - the clock above the mantelpiece read at half past the hour when he could’ve sworn he arrived at barely twenty past. He’d hoped that if he spent enough time dawdling he wouldn’t have to go in, could go back to the station to get the next train back to Edinburgh, but he was still a coward. He couldn’t risk a dishonourable discharge - his mother would be devastated.

The reception area was warm and wood panelled. The fireplace was empty. He sighed, and blinked, hard. “Yes, sir?” His stance shifted instinctively, coming to attention as he noticed the stripes on the other man’s sleeve.

“None of that, now,” said the other man, waving his hand vaguely. “I’m Doctor Smith, we’d been wondering when you’d arrive.”

Brendon nodded, sharply. “Yes, sorry. The first train was delayed, couldn’t get another one for a few hours.”

“That’s fine,” said Dr Smith with a kind smile. “It is quite isolated in this part of Scotland. When I got the job I had to check about three atlases before I could find it.” Brendon liked him instinctively, and he smiled back.

The doctor motioned to follow him down the hallway, past the curious stares of half a dozen officers wearing blue armbands.

“So,” Brendon said after they’d spent a few minutes in an almost comfortable silence. “How does this whole, um, thing- how does it work?” He’d remembered with a jolt just why he’d been sent to the arse end of Scotland.

“Well, Sergeant,” said Dr Smith, finally pausing in front of a tall oak door, nameplate in well shined brass reading ‘Doctor S. Smith, FRCP, FRS’, and opened it, leading them both into a small but well appointed office. “I hate to say it, but in some way that’s really up to you.”

Brendon gave him an incredulous look, eyebrows raising involuntarily, before he remembered that he was still in the army and carefully lowered them. “I don’t understand what you mean, Doctor. I’m not a doctor, I’m just some nutcase you’re meant to treat, right? How am I supposed to know what’s b-best-” He stopped, mortified by his slip up. 

He’d almost got the stutter, which had appeared a few months before he nearly got blown up and stubbornly refused to leave him, under control - if only by talking more slowly and sparingly than he might have liked. And yet only five minutes inside a loony bin and he was already back to it, stammering like one of his brothers had when he was very small, before he’d been persuaded out of it.

Smith sat at his desk and kept smiling. It was a small and inoffensive smile, but Brendon still felt an irrational urge to scowl in the face of such carefree pleasantry.

“I meant only that, at this hospital, treatment is much more flexible than at other… establishments.” Here, his smile did falter slightly. Brendon remembered, suddenly, a story he’d overheard from a private, while he was still in the real hospital. He’d tuned it out quickly, lurid tales of electroshock therapy not being particularly pleasant for his already fragmented state of mind, but clearly it had stuck with him. “There’s no point trying to fit a square peg in a round hole, yes?”

“Well, obviously,” said Brendon, trying to catch the thread of the conversation again after his mind had, treacherously, sent itself places he’d rather it didn’t. He kept his speech deliberate and treacle slow. “But I don’t see-”

“Imagine that your mind is the round hole, and treatment is a peg to fill it in, if I have to be crude.” This time the smile was more of a smirk. “The shape of the peg determines how effective the treatment will be.”

Brendon nodded as understanding dawned. “If you say so, sir.” He was tempted to ask what the S on the nameplate stood for, and perhaps six months ago he would have, but he wasn’t feeling much like himself anymore.

“It’s been nice to talk to you, anyway, Sergeant Urie,” said Dr Smith warmly, standing up behind his desk. “I’ll call a nurse to show you to your room - they’re not locked, I hope you understand the difficulty in a place like this-”

“Yes,” said Brendon, stiffly. “I think I get it. Sir.” He saluted and turned to join the slender, brunette woman who’d appeared at the now open door.

She didn’t smile, but her eyes were soft. “This way, Sergeant,” she said confidently, starting down the corridor with a long stride leaving Brendon to hurry to catch up. “It’s on the second floor, quite close to the mess hall. Dinner is at half six every night, so if you hurry with unpacking you should be able to get there in time for some nice grub.”

“Thank you, Nurse…?” Brendon was breathing hard in the effort of keeping up with her. He’d only been off crutches for a week.

She turned back, tilting her neck to look up at him. “Orzechowski. And no, it’s not German.”

“I knew that,” said Brendon, affronted. “It’s not got a-” He made a kind of gargling harsh noise in the back of his throat. “One of those.”

Nurse Orzechowski smiled. She seemed to be almost surprised at herself for doing it, though, turning swiftly back to continue making up his bed. “I’m sorry this wasn’t done before you arrived, we’re a little short staffed at the moment.”

Brendon had noticed a lack of nurses during their long walk across the hospital. There had been a few dotted about, talking quietly or going about their jobs, but nowhere near as many as he remembered from London. “Why? I mean, it’s not like the area’s bad. Nice grounds.”

“Yes, well,” said Sarah, expression once again closed off. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out eventually. There,” she continued, patting his mattress. “All finished. If there’s any issues, don’t hesitate to ask. Your roommate should be up here by lights out - if he doesn’t show up, please tell someone on the staff.”

Brendon nodded, and she left, door swinging shut behind her. It didn’t have a lock, but he still felt, inexplicably, shut off from the world. Maybe that was the point of it, he thought as he finally got to open his suitcase. As he hung his uniform on one of several wire hangers left inside the half full wardrobe, he kept a careful watch on the time. He was very hungry, and according to his watch dinner started in half an hour.

\----------------------------

Ryan appraised a patch of grass for a moment, checking that yesterday’s downpour hadn’t left it too damp, and laid down, staring up at the cloudless sky. The light was beginning to dim, but he’d felt disconnected all afternoon, a still sense of detachment filling him until it overflowed. He’d known that the only way to fix it, at least temporarily, was to commune with nature. Well, that was how Spencer had always put it, anyway. Ryan wasn’t really sure if he was communing with anything.

He sighed, shifting as he felt pebbles digging into his back. There was probably a poem in this whole fucking situation somewhere, but he hadn’t been able to find it. A few months ago there could’ve been a song, as well, but now that was impossible for a myriad of reasons. He ran a hand through his hair, which was sorely in need of a cut, curls twisting through his fingers, and rested his head on his folded jacket.

 _I wandered lonely as a cloud_ , he thought with a twinge of self pity. He didn’t even like Wordsworth that much. He’d read a lot of poetry like his before the war, a lot of mincing about in the wild with daffodils, and although he’d liked it at the time, stuck in a port town with tiny brick houses lining the street, after he’d been in France it seemed like a lot of bullshit. Ryan was very young for a jaded cynic.

It was uncomfortable, lying out there in the grounds of the hospital in the kind of silence that bred paranoia, but after a while Ryan was starting to feel more like a person and less like a corpse that no one had noticed should be dead, so he levered himself back up, resting briefly on his elbows, before picking up his crutches and starting the long, slow walk back to the main building. He had a feeling dinner was about to start. He thought it might have been half an hour since the bell tower had rung the hour and set the sky on fire for a moment.

His shoulders and hip were starting to ache as he struggled up the front step, and the pain in his hip sharpened as he leant on his crutch, pushing open the heavy front doors. The entrance hall was deserted, and a quick glance at the clock on the mantel confirmed his sudden suspicion that he’d spent a lot longer outside than he’d thought. The hour hand, resting comfortably at a point much closer to seven than Ryan would have expected, seemed to taunt him as he hurried past as fast as his crutches would let him.

The door to the mess hall was ajar, thankfully, so Ryan simply leaned against it and limped through, heading to the open window to the kitchen. He picked up his bowl of stew, simple but with a promisingly pleasant smell, and surveyed the room. Nearly every table was full, mostly of people who he’d annoyed in some way over the few months he’d been at the hospital. Ryan was willing to admit that he could be overly aggressive at times, but he’d hoped he’d manage to find at least one compatriot besides the head psychiatrist.

One corner of the room had a smaller table, which Ryan usually sat at, alone with his thoughts. That day, however, there was a new face. The man who’d occupied Ryan’s space was handsome, he supposed, his hair cropped close in the standard military style. A wide forehead. He had the slight and perpetual squint of someone who probably should have been wearing glasses.

Ryan made his way over, more slowly now that he had to negotiate the crutches with his elbows while his hands were busy holding his tray, and sat down on the opposite side of the table, his back facing the exit. It was unguarded, and his mind helpfully supplied images of German ambushes which made his meal suddenly the least appetising thing he’d seen since bully beef and acorn coffee.

The newcomer looked up, a guarded smile on his face. “Evening,” he said. His stew looked untouched, but Ryan could remember his own first night. Even a sane man’s nerves would be tested by the sound of vomiting that almost always came from the other corner of the room, or the occasional shivering man that had to be led out by a sympathetic nurse.

Ryan inclined his head, politely, then started spooning stew into his mouth. It was quite good, for hospital food, and he’d accidentally skipped lunch while on a walk.

“Urie.” The other man seemed a little offended, his voice slightly sharper.

Shaking his head, Ryan paused in his hasty pursuit of his food. He pointed at his throat and raised his eyebrows.

“Oh,” said Urie, his voice losing some heat. “Sorry.”

The stew was probably still fine, but Ryan was suddenly having trouble tasting it. He reached into his front pocket, pulling out a spiral bound notebook and pencil. Flipping to the first empty page, he scribbled a note and shoved it across the table.

 _Ross_ , it read. _Sergeant_.

“Really?” Urie didn’t seem surprised. Just pleased. Ryan didn’t understand why, but everyone in the place had to be a bit fucked in the head, so he didn’t understand a lot of things people said. Even himself, on occasion. “Me too. Wasn’t for long before, well…” He trailed off, clearly unsure how to communicate ‘Before I got chucked in the loony bin’ politely. Ryan smiled.

He scraped up the last few dregs of stew, retrieved the sheet he’d ripped out, and then scrawled out another message below the first.

 _The same_. Ryan had never had very good handwriting, and it had only got worse after he got a Blighty, hands shaking so much it’d been hard to even hold the pencil. Spencer had helped with that.

“Why the capitals? Are you just excited, or…”

 _Clearer_. The letters now covered two lines, exaggerated in their size and overly round.

They smiled at each other.

\----------------------------

The smell of cordite was thick in the air. Brendon exhaled, slowly, heart hammering in his chest, and turned his face back into the pillow.

He’d always had bad dreams, when he was a child, and they’d returned full force while he was being treated for the physical injuries he’d suffered. His skin had healed, but his mind was still fucking with him on a daily basis. He could never remember exactly what happened in them, which should have been a comfort.

After he’d lain there for almost ten minutes, by his estimation, and he still couldn’t blink away the fires he swore he’d seen burning, he sighed and sat up. The sky outside the window was just beginning to lighten.

Ten years ago, he might have prayed for some kind of clarity, but he’d left the church before he’d even left school and by then, at age 23, he knew that pretending to find faith again would’ve been just another kind of fear. He’d seen plenty of men die, and he’d been tempted to believe that they were in a better place, but, well. He had the courage of his convictions.

He still needed to write to his parents. He’d already written to each of his siblings, individually, reassuring him that he was fine, and just needed a little more time to recuperate than he’d expected. He winced, remembering a particularly troubling family dinner they’d had while he was on leave. His eldest brother had ranted about conchies and cowards for a full ten minutes, everyone too polite and scared to say anything.

Still, he found writing to his parents the hardest. Their relationship had been strained since he’d left the church, and especially when he hadn’t married young, as they’d hoped he would. That was the one good thing the war had brought Brendon, because once he was safely, for a given value of the word, on French soil, there wasn’t much his parents could say in favour of a potential marriage.

His roommate, another officer by the name of Wentz, rolled over in his sleep. Brendon watched him for a moment, already aware of the signs of an impending nightmare and happily spotting none, and then turned back to the slow progression of his letter home. The postmark would probably tell them whatever he didn’t want to spell out, but selective truth was almost as bad as lying, and his parents hated lying more than most things.

“Dear Mother and Father,” he began, mouthing the words to himself as the pen moved shakily across the page. “I have something new to report; I will not be returning to the front immediately, as I had expected…”

He continued in this vein for another half an hour, his pen slowly steadying as he filled page after page with carefully considered observations about life at the hospital. He’d been there for almost a week, and had a few sessions with Doctor Smith. He sat with Sergeant Ross at dinner nearly every night. He felt like he was improving, really, he was.

It was _nearly the whole truth_ , thought Brendon, as he sealed the envelope and carefully addressed it. He set it on his nightstand, looking up to discover that the sun was nearly risen already. Wentz rolled over again, curling up in a tight ball. Brendon’s forehead creased. He was worried about the other patients, despite the private desire he’d harboured that first night to avoid forming any friendships.

His thoughts lingered on Sergeant Ross. Initially, Brendon had been intrigued by his muteness, but now he’d moved on from that fascination to a more general sense of interest. He supposed this was what bosom friendship felt like, his sister having explained it to him after he’d been confused by her closeness with a friend she’d invited to dinner, way back before the war.

The sun rose slowly, light streaming in through the small window and hitting Wentz directly. He groaned quietly then opened his eyes, giving the impression at every moment that he’d rather be doing anything else.

“Morning, Urie.” Wentz grinned. It fit his face easily, and if Brendon hadn’t met him during a bad period he might’ve wondered what he was doing at the hospital at all.

“Morning,” he replied, nodding before heading to their shared wardrobe. “Do you think they’ll have anything edible for breakfast?” He pulled a clean shirt and trousers from a hanger.

“Wouldn’t know,” said Wentz with a smile. “Sure, Stump’s a friend, but he’s only an assistant. Not like they’re going to tell the officers all their secrets.” Brendon rolled his eyes and pulled off his nightshirt, pulling on the crisp linen of his dress shirt quickly and busying himself with the buttons.

After the first morning he’d learnt that, while Wentz seemed like the kind of man who’d ask too many questions, his burns had brought no comments, and then, after a week, he was starting to like him.

He hummed as he pulled on his trousers, a tune he couldn’t remember learning but was beginning to associate with upticks in his mood. It was probably quite annoying to others, and Brendon had never really thought about his own singing voice, but Wentz hadn’t yet complained.

They walked down to the mess hall in companionable silence. It was only half full, but Brendon still headed to his customary table in the corner. Ross was already there, scribbling something in his ever present notebook, crutches leaning against the wall.

He peered over Ross’s shoulder and saw that this morning he was scribbling poetry.He smiled, and wished him a cheery “Good morning!”

Ross jumped and slammed the table, but he didn’t close the notebook.

“Ah, I’m sorry, Ross. I shouldn’t have snuck up on you.” He moved to pat him on the back, then thought better of it and slumped into the seat next to him.

Breakfast was tense, and Ross didn’t look up from his notebook, or his toast, until they were both almost finished. He turned to a new page, wrote a few sentences, and handed them across the table to Brendon. Then he stood up, abruptly, grabbed his crutches, and left.

 _ ~~I don’t~~ It’s alright. Don’t do it again. ~~Please~~ Call me Ryan_.

\----------------------------

Ryan spent a lot of time in his room.

His roommate, Captain Jon Walker, had been called back to France a few months ago. His medical board had gone much better than either of them had thought it would, and he’d had a week to arrange his affairs. Ryan had spent most of the week buried in regrets, trying to pull together the courage to hug Jon before he left. He managed it, a quick squeeze that Jon had given him a rare smile for, and then Jon had left for the front. He hadn’t written for a while. Ryan wasn’t worrying about it, at all.

When he’d first arrived, the small window and low ceiling had felt too similar to the dugouts he’d spent his hours in for months, but after a few weeks he’d begun to appreciate the illusion of privacy. He wasn’t like the other patients, who were, for the most part, not eager to return to France. Ryan wanted to go back. He wanted to be serving his country. But for as long as his hands kept shaking when Spencer showed him photos of guns, of grenades, and as long as he remained voiceless, he was stuck in this stone building, a thousand miles from where he needed to be.

That afternoon, after he’d told Sergeant Urie to call him Ryan and then run, because that kind of friendship fucking hurt when it inevitably ended, he heard a soft knock on his door. He got up and limped over, not bothering with his crutches even though it made the ever present pain in his hip flare up.

He opened the door to reveal a contrite looking Sergeant Urie, clutching the note in one hand and a different notebook in the other. He offered Ryan the note.

Ryan unfolded it carefully, and glanced down. Under his own message, Urie had written a few words in a careful hand.

 _Nice to meet you, Ryan. Name’s Brendon - you come here often?_. Next to that Brendon had drawn something that Ryan assumed was supposed to be a caricature of himself, smiling and waving. It wasn’t particularly impressive, but its lines betrayed the effort Brendon must have put into it. Ryan smiled involuntarily.

Ryan looked up to find Brendon smiling back at him. It wasn’t accusatory, or calculating, or anything else Ryan might’ve expected. It was just happy. Happy that Ryan was here. He stumbled backwards and sat down on his bed. Hard.

“May I come in?” Brendon was still self consciously stood just inside the doorway, leaning against the frame with his arms folded.

Nodding, Ryan pointed at Jon’s bed, as if to say _Go ahead_. Brendon grinned, the expression lighting up his face, and sat down with a slight bounce. He threw the notebook he’d been holding at Ryan’s chest, where it connected with a faint thump. Ryan looked at it in confusion.

“It’s for writing serious sh- things. I saw your poetry this morning and I thought you might want something more private.” He flushed a little, clearly embarrassed. Ryan had curled in on himself slightly when Brendon mentioned his poetry, his instincts screaming at him to kick Brendon out and never talk to him again. His poetry was _his_ poetry, no one else’s.

With an effort, he straightened himself up and forced a smile. It felt fake, and probably looked it, but there was something stirring in his chest and he didn’t want to make it any worse with an argument. Brendon sitting on the opposite bed, feet flat on the ground and hands gripping the edge of the mattress, looked so similar to Jon for a moment that Ryan is almost convinced he’s having another moment.

He picked up his normal notebook with trembling fingers and wrote another message. It occurred to him, for the first time in a few weeks, just how useless this method of communication was. There was none of the spontaneity he missed so much, and he had started to think that he might have forgotten what his voice had even sounded like. He tore the page out, crumpled it, and threw it at Brendon’s chest.

 _Thank you. ~~Why do you~~ I don’t normally talk about poetry_.

Brendon shrugged. “I like poetry. I’m actually a big fan of the arts, but I couldn’t earn a living playing music so I enlisted.”

_Music?_

It had been a few years, but Ryan had once thought of himself as a musician. He hadn’t been able to afford any instruments, but the lyrics had always come easily. 

“Yes,” said Brendon. “I learnt the piano when I was very young and I always wanted to do more, but- well, that’s another story.”

Ryan gave him an appraising look. _You know there’s a piano here, yes?_

The note took a few seconds to unfold, one of the edges getting caught under itself and nearly ending up with the paper torn in two, but it eventually yielded. Brendon’s face lit up. Clearly, he hadn’t known about the drawing room.

 _It’s just down the hall_ , read the note that took Ryan several minutes to write, hands shaking with excitement rather than fear, for once. _~~I could~~ ~~would you~~ I’ll show you, if you want_.

“Please,” said Brendon, the warmest Ryan had ever heard him speak. “It’s been years since I’ve got to play on a real one, not just practice on the edge of a table.”

Ryan’s fingers twitched, and he almost reached out to grab Brendon’s hand and pull him along. He had no idea where the impulse had come from, but something had replaced whatever had been stirring in his chest. Something warm, and full. He didn’t think he liked what it could mean.

He headed out the door, pausing only to pick up one of his crutches from their position besides his bed. He inclined his head at Brendon with a smile, and kept smiling as he headed towards the drawing room, the soft footsteps behind him reminding him that this, at least, was real.

The hinges on the drawing room door were inclined to squeak. After the first few times he’d gone in, when the drawn out, metallic sound had set him on edge for the entire visit, he’d started to brace himself in preparation. Brendon didn’t know about it, and this time the long, drawn out sound seemed even longer than usual. Ryan looked back at Brendon, who had frozen in the doorway. He gently touched him on the arm.

Brendon startled slightly then gave him an apologetic smile, eyes dark. Ryan smiled back, not feeling anything close to happy, and beckoned him into the room. The drawing room had a much grander name than its contents: a few overstuffed armchairs, a bookcase, and a chessboard. The highlight of the room was undoubtedly the dusty grand piano in the corner, which was almost unassuming in its quiet grandeur. It didn’t draw the eye.

With a low whistle, Brendon slid onto the bench and cracked his knuckles. He looked back up at Ryan. “This might not be that good… actually, I’m very good at piano, it’ll be fine.”

He put his fingers to the keys. His nails were bitten to the quick, like most of the men in the hospital. Ryan hadn’t been expecting much, not because he doubted Brendon’s confidence, but because he knew what overconfidence looked like and Brendon, while undoubtedly charming, looked like it.

After a few moments, Ryan realised how wrong he’d been. Whatever Brendon was playing, and Ryan didn’t recognise what it was, was played expertly. It might have been intimidating if Brendon hadn’t been beaming at Ryan where he was stood leaning on the edge of the piano, chin in his right hand and crutch in his left. He started humming along to the music, absentmindedly, even as it took sudden turns that he, somehow, managed to anticipate.

It was beautiful, rising and falling like the waves on the sea Ryan hadn’t seen since he’d left Plymouth for the army, and he closed his eyes, quietly letting the music unfold and wash over him. It reminded him of warm Sunday afternoons sat on the pier with his mother, watching the waves wash up on the rocks. 

The music, whatever it was, segued into Tipperary and then Pack Up Your Troubles. He opened his eyes as the piece came to a close, and caught another glimpse of Brendon’s smile. He felt the warmth in his chest intensify, filling it up, until it was so tight he could hardly breathe.

\----------------------------

Brendon walked to his session with Dr Smith with a faint sense of dread. He wasn’t sure what he brought it on, but there was something heavy in his chest and it grew with every step he took towards his office.

His breakfast had been marred by a lack of Ryan - for some reason he hadn’t come down, and Brendon didn’t want to seem like a mother hen so he hadn’t gone to check on him. He regretted that now, but he couldn’t skip his meeting with Dr Smith. That would probably result in something unpleasant and official and he didn’t want to deal with that.

After a swift knock on Smith’s door he was beckoned into the small room. He sat down in the chair set opposite the desk, and waited. Dr Smith was stood by the window, looking contemplatively out at the rainstorm which had woken Brendon that morning.

“Doctor?” Brendon’s voice shook a little, and that surprised him. His hands were trembling as well, now he thought of it, but he had no idea why.

Smith turned away from the window. He had an expression of aching sympathy, which only served to make Brendon more worried. “W-what is it?” He was seized by a sudden urge to stand up and shake Dr Smith to get him to talk, but clamped down on it swiftly.

Dr Smith took off his glasses and wiped them on the edge of his shirt. “Nothing to worry about, Sergeant Urie. Just- there were some reports, this morning, about you. It seems your dreams are becoming worse, not better.”

“I don’t,” Brendon began. “I don’t remember my dreams. How is anyone else supposed to know about them if I don’t remember them?” His voice rose as he spoke, growing closer to hysteria.

“Nurse Orzechowski came to us with her concerns. Apparently you’ve been screaming during the night. Wentz apparently didn’t notice it, but then he sleeps very soundly.” The look of sympathy remained, and Brendon still wanted to scream, but he just nodded tightly. It made sense.

“I do have a suggestion to help you,” said Smith, after a moment. “Developments in hypnosis have been promising in helping to recover memories.”

Brendon gave him a look. “I don’t really have a choice, do I?”

Dr Smith looked genuinely offended. “I don’t force patients to do things, Sergeant. I do have a medical degree - we all have to take the Hippocratic Oath.”

“Sorry, sir,” said Brendon, quietly. “But- surely the army has something to say about treatment. If I refuse, isn’t that insubordination?”

Dr Smith sighed again. “Yes, technically, but that requires me to make a report, and I never file them. I don’t see any point in doing it, especially when every patient is different and successful treatment always involves consent.”

“I’m, uh, glad to hear it.” Brendon felt the weight in his chest lift slightly. His breathing slowed. “So, hypnosis, huh?”

“Yes,” said Dr Smith with a slight smile. “It’s not all dangling watches and making people cluck like chickens, you know. A lot of cases like yours benefit greatly from it.”

“Cases like m-mine,” said Brendon slowly.

“Shell shock victims with less severe physical symptoms,” explained the doctor, reseating himself behind the desk. “Paralysis, severe physical tics and other muscular disorders are more difficult, at least for myself, to treat with hypnosis. Although considering I don’t often have cause to treat them here, I could be wrong.” 

Brendon nodded. He’d heard about the hospital at Seale Hayne. “I wouldn’t mind trying it.” A corner of his mind was occupied with picking apart the fact that he’d apparently been having terrible dreams for weeks and couldn’t remember them. He realised, suddenly, that he was afraid.

“Alright,” said Dr Smith. “We could try it immediately, if you like. Would you be more comfortable sitting or lying down?”

A few months ago Brendon would absolutely have raised an amused eyebrow at that, but as it was just waved vaguely at the couch next to the doctor’s bookshelves.

After he’d lain down and shifted on the hard leather to find a comfortable position, Dr Smith moved the guest chair and sat next to him.

“So, what do we do now?”

“You relax. Lie back on the couch. That’s right. Relax your shoulders, now. Now your hands. Let the wrists go. Are you comfortable? Good. I want you to look at this pen. No, don’t raise your head. Raise your eyes. Yes, that’s good. Keep your eyes fixed on the pen. I’m going to count down from ten. By the time I get to zero, you’ll be in a light sleep. All right?”

Brendon nodded. He felt relaxed, for the first time in a while. It was nice. Dr Smith’s smooth voice washed over him. “Ten… Nine… Eight… Seven…Six… Your eyelids are heavy now. Don’t fight it, let them close. Five… Four… Three… Two…”

[It’s dark. He wakes up in a dugout, the sharp smell of cordite seeping into every pore. His puttees are grimy and his face is unshaven. The whistle of shells is audible through the rough dirt walls. There is dirty water swirling under the wooden slatted floor of the trench when he walks out. Everything seems very far away.

Walking through the trench he realises that he is alone. Every dugout he sees is devoid of life, helmets and packs abandoned, rifles still laid against the walls. It seems almost peaceful, here below the surface in relative safety. The shell noises have stopped. He hears a faint scraping sound from behind him. A moan.

Brendon turns slowly, inevitably. He can see Ryan sprawled on the floor of the trench, intestines hanging out of his emptying chest. As he watches, Ryan blinks at him and smiles. Blood spills from his mouth as he opens it, saying something Brendon can’t make out. He has the most beautiful voice.]

He drifted slowly awake on the couch, heart pounding. His cheeks were wet.

Dr Smith put his hand on Brendon’s shoulder, comfortingly. He could feel the warmth through his shirt.

“Well,” he said, quietly. “That was definitely something.”

\----------------------------

Ryan drifted awake to find himself staring at a blinding white ceiling. The sound of someone moaning drifted towards him, but he didn’t understand why and didn’t really care.

A nurse bustled past, then stopped abruptly and came back to stand next to his bed.

“Morning, soldier,” she said cheerily. “How are you feeling.”

‘Like shit’ didn’t seem to be an appropriate answer to such a cheerful question. “Okay,” he croaked out, then stopped. He’d talked. He’d _talked_.

His breathing picked up slightly. The nurse seemed almost as surprised by his response as he was, peering at his chart with undisguised curiosity.

“Well,” she said with a smile. “I suppose I’ll have to call Dr Smith. Give him the good news! Oh, and if you painkillers start to wear off...” She gestured towards the nurse’s station at the end of the ward, and then departed, still smiling, leaving Ryan alone with his thoughts.

He knew he was in hospital because of his hip. Apparently pain that lasted more than a few weeks after a surgery that was supposed to remove all the shrapnel from a wound was a cause for concern. Clearly they’d found a few more shards inside him, because he could feel that his side was heavily bandaged.

Testing his limits, he breathed in slowly and deeply. It hurt badly, but nowhere near as badly as it had done on some mornings. Jon would have been sat by his bed laughing at him if he was still in Scotland, the bastard. He’d always said Ryan should get his hip checked out again, especially after the first month had gone by without the pain abating, but Ryan hated hospitals enough without having to stay in one longer than he’d been at the front. Besides, the pain meant he was definitely awake.

He lay there for a few more minutes, listening to the bustle of the nurses around him and the laboured breathing of the man in the next bed over. It occurred to him that, with Jon in France, there was no one he could think of who would visit him. He carefully rolled onto his side - the one not held together by stitches and covered in bandages.

There was a letter on his bedside table.

Ryan was struck by the surreal nature of the situation. Why would he have a letter already, when he’d only arrived at the hospital a few days before? He reached for it, expecting it to be from Spencer, who’d made a point of keeping in contact with him even when he was at medical school and Ryan was in boot camp.

It was addressed in a familiar hand. Ryan smiled, unexpectedly delighted, and opened the envelope swiftly.

“Dear Ryan,” it began. “I fucking told you so.”

Jon had always had a way with words. Ryan’s smile spread, until he felt almost like he was floating with happiness.

“Leave starts in a week, so you’d better be fucking prepared for the beating I’ll give you if you don’t listen to the doctors and _stay where you’re told_.” The postmark informed Ryan that the letter had been just over a week beforehand, but the censors would never have let him know where from.

He savoured the rest of the letter, which ran to several pages and, after the initial aggression, was mostly full of anecdotes from Jon’s unit and complaints about the food. He put it back into the envelope carefully and admonished himself. Of course Jon had been fine. There had been plenty of times that he hadn’t been able to send a reply to a letter for a month or more when he was on the front, and there had been no cause to worry. No cause at all.

Struck by a sudden wave of fatigue, he closed his eyes. His excitement had already ebbed away - the surgery must have left him even weaker than he’d first thought. Almost as quickly as he’d woken up, he drifted back to sleep, half remembered music notes following him down.

[There is something wet collecting around his shoes. He wants to move, to get away from whatever is congealing around him, but his legs are suddenly like lead. Looking down, he confirms his own suspicions. Someone must be bleeding out nearby, he thinks, absently, and mechanically lifts his head.

Someone is laid face down in the muck. They’re in no man’s land, barbed wire all around, but it’s silent. He reaches for his whistle, to alert the stretcher bearers, but as he gropes for his belt he finds that all his equipment is missing.

He tries to yell, words dying in his throat before they even reach his tongue. Something is wrong with his throat. It feels like it’s full of water, choking him. There’s a hand on his shoulder. His head turns, even as he tries to keep looking at the man on the ground. There’s something terrible and familiar about him.

Jon smiles at him, eye sockets empty and half his face missing. “There’s nothing you can do, Ryan.” His mouth gapes horribly.

He turns back to look at the man on the ground. He’s been turned over, now, and he’s Brendon. It’s Brendon. His throat has been slashed open, and Ryan grasps at his own neck as he feels, slow and wet, blood pouring out of a cut of his own.]

He jerked awake, and the first real thing he could see was Jon sat in the chair next to his bed. He wasn’t covered in blood, which Ryan was thankful for, and his face wasn’t twitching as it had while they’d been rooming together.

“Morning,” Jon said, looking up from his newspaper. “How do you feel?”

“Like shit,” croaked Ryan. Jon always made him feel more honest.

Jon smiled slightly, scratching his chin. “I see you’ve got that back. Nice to know that you can annoy people with speech as well as your terrible handwriting now.”

Ryan slapped his thigh, smiling back. “Nice to know you’ve finally shaved off that awful beard.” It took him a while to speak, and he could almost feel it fading as he went on, but it was back. At least for now.

Idly, he wondered what Brendon would think of his voice.

\-------------------------------------------------

There was a telegram in his pigeonhole. Brendon looked at it contemplatively. The postmark was for Edinburgh. Luckily, it wasn’t in an envelope. Letter openers, and all other sharp objects, were kept in a mysterious and inaccessible place somewhere in the hospital, and Brendon was a magnet for paper cuts when he tried to open envelopes by hand.

“SGT URIE,” he read, mouth moving silently. “SGT ROSS REQUESTED YOU BE INFORMED OF CONDITION STOP SURGERY SUCCESSFUL STOP.”

He frowned. Ryan hadn’t been around for a week, certainly, and he had been worried, but he hadn’t realised he was in surgery for something. He thought guiltily of Ryan wincing every time he put too much weight on his bad hip.

Putting the telegram down carefully, he stood up. Across the room, Wentz raised an eyebrow. “Got somewhere to be?”

“I think I might go pay Dr Smith a visit.”

Wentz shrugged. “If you insist. I’ve been meaning to get Stump up here anyway, I want some help fixing the bedframe.” He glanced at the end of the bed, which was still hanging at a slight angle from where he’d kicked it in the midst of a nightmare.

Brendon rolled his eyes - he had a feeling Stump, for all his merits, was much too fond of Wentz for his own good - and left the room, closing the door carefully behind him. The hinges were starting to squeak.

The walk to Dr Smith’s office was quiet and slow. The hallways were eerily empty, the only sound the click click of his boots along the wooden floor. Brendon knew the hospital wasn’t empty - the drawing room always had half a dozen people around, playing cards and making determined eye contact - but it always felt deserted in the early evening. The wireless had broken several weeks beforehand and after a failed attempt to fix it by Wentz the soldiers had given up and gone back to humming whatever they wanted to hear.

The only other person out and about was Stump, who nodded politely at him before heading past, boots squeaking, presumably towards Brendon’s own room. He hoped sincerely his meeting with Dr Smith took at least half an hour.

He knocked on Dr Smith’s door, praying silently that he wasn’t busy with another patient. A moment later the door swung open, Dr Smith giving one of his warm smiles.

“Sergeant Urie! What a pleasant surprise, please, do come in. Tea?”

“No, I’m fine, thank you.” Brendon shifted uncomfortably, realising too late that he’d automatically stood to attention. He hadn’t done that since his first day at the hospital.

Dr Smith raised his eyebrows. “Well, have a seat. What seems to be the problem?”

Brendon sat down reluctantly. He looked up at Dr Smith, and sighed. “I got a telegram about S-Sergeant Ross, it said he’d had surgery?”

“Ah,” said Dr Smith. He rubbed a hand down his face. “Ryan- Sergeant Ross did get taken into Edinburgh for surgery last week, yes. We didn’t inform the other patients because, well, mostly because he asked us not to. He seems to think having shrapnel still inside him from a shell blast is somehow dishonourable.”

Clearly, Dr Smith had spent a lot of time dwelling on this. Brendon felt a wave of sympathy for the man. “So, um,” he said, slowly. “Do you know when he’ll be getting back?”

Dr Smith blinked. “He won’t be.”

Brendon gaped at him. He was pretty sure Dr Smith had just said Ryan wouldn’t be coming back but that meant- it could only mean something bad. His heart hammered in his ribcage. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

“No, no, no,” said Dr Smith hastily, Brendon’s distress easily visible. “He’s alive, it’s just that- well, he no longer needs treatment here, according to my orders.”

“What? But he can’t speak, how is he meant to s-serve?” Brendon could feel panic rising in his chest. Ryan couldn’t go back to France. It was too dangerous, much too dangerous. They both knew that intimately. “Dr Smith, why is he g-going back?” His voice rose. His vision was starting to blur at the edges.

“His speech returned, and after his physical wounds recover he’ll be sent back to the front. I don’t like it either, Brendon- May I call you Brendon?” 

Brendon nodded through the haze that was starting to blanket him.

“Well, yes, as I said, I don’t like it. I’ve known Sergeant Ross since we were both very young - we grew up on the same street. I don’t want him in danger any more than you do. Believe me.” Dr Smith seemed very small, in that moment. Honesty was a good look on him, usually.

“If we’re on f-first name terms for this conversation, can I ask what the S stands for?” Brendon was still feeling severely out of sorts, almost like he was watching someone else say the words.

“It’s Spencer. And please don’t repeat that outside this room, I prefer to hand it out sparingly. The air of mystery is irresistible.”

Brendon nodded again. It felt like he was moving through syrup. “Can I visit him?” He had a vague idea that if he visited Ryan things would start feeling real again. He’d tried pinching his arm but even the pain had felt detached from himself.

“Of course,” said Spencer, surprised. “Patients have freedom of movement during the day, as long as you wear the armband. I can call the hospital to arrange it, if you’d like.”

“Oh. Okay. If you could, that would be…” Brendon trailed off. He swore he’d seen something flash outside of the office window. Time was slowing down.

He blinked. Spencer was kneeling in front of him, gently calling his name.

“Sorry,” said Brendon quietly. “That hasn’t happened in a while.”

“That’s progress,” Spencer replied. “Two steps forward, one step back.”

“I’d prefer to just move forward. I don’t like thinking about the past.” 

Spencer smiled, gently. “And that, Brendon, is one of the reasons you’re here.”

Brendon stood up. He swayed a little, but his legs quickly reasserted themselves and became solid again. “Thank you. I do want to visit him, so. Whenever you can. Yes.”

Spencer patted him on the shoulder. “Of course, Sergeant. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The walk back to his room was less quiet this time, and as he reached it Brendon realised why. It was already half past seven, and if he didn’t rush he would miss dinner. He laid down on his bed, boots still on, and didn’t rush.

**Author's Note:**

> as i said, this is ridiculously self indulgent. however, it is still technically entirely the fault of my friend katy, who is hopefully feeling the pain that i felt while writing this right now.
> 
> credit for the hypnosis induction goes to pat barker in regeneration, because i had no fucking idea how to write that.
> 
> title is from wilfred owen's 'the parable of the old man and the young'


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